Eris, who was resting his head on my thigh, passed out and snoring, jolted upwards suddenly when the deck started to shake in a vicious manner. 

The only one of the suns which showed its face on the Krayevus sky melted into the abyss, marking the beginning of the twin night, and with that, the beginning of the poison sandstorms.

Viridescent smog rose from beneath the Harpie's hull, tainting the air and blinding the sight in front of us. Wildering woods hungrily raised to the skies towering above the swamp surface, they reached to the sides of the Harpie and roughed against them brutally.

"Damn these emerald moths! Damn you all!" shouted a group of hallowmorians.

 They stomped their large feet on the deck, making the smaller fellows run to save themselves from any possible injuries.

One of the giants rubbed his eye in an attempt to lessen the stinging sensation created by the smog, and he continued to swear between his yellow stained teeth. He cursed the land, the trees, the king of Krayevus, and the day he finally sat on the throne.

"What is with all the fuss he's making..." mumbled Eris, yawning as he stood up. "What is all the agitation over a little fog and some turbulence?"

"Something tells me it's not just that..." I told the boy, turning my head to look at him.

Ever since the Emerald King rose on the throne of Krayevus, things in that part of the empire were no longer stable. The rules of the gods have been forsaken for many. The Emerald King put himself above the laws. Greed and a hunger for power ruled his judgement. He was cunning, more so than the rest could anticipate.

Everyone seemed to know this, but nobody could prove him wrong or stand against him.

"Incoming!!" shouted, Geno, the young cervitaur who had an altercation with Eris before we embarked on our journey. "It's coming straight towards us!" he cried, and galloped to dodge a large branch that pierced through the deck of the Harpie.

I dug the claws of my feet into the wooden surface and pulled the hood of my cloak lower over my head. I could smell the fear that lingered in the air, like rotten flesh, eating at the sanity of the ones present.

I felt Eris's claws digging into my arm as he grabbed a hold of it, and the boldness and cheekiness that ruled his demeanor up until that point slipped away leaving the child inside of him come out without warning. 

The reddish scales on his neck tensed upward, his thin eyebrows raised, forming a straight line, his arms were shaking and he stood there petrified.

"Everything is going to be fine..." I mumbled, more so to myself. "It's only the green sandstorms... You know they last throughout the twin nights."

"They are coming for us, aren't they?" he managed to utter, "Like they did for the hallowmorians?" his words turned into whispers, his voice cracking.

"Nobody is coming for anybody...It's been more full moons than one can count since the last invasion," I reminded him, and placed a hand over his shoulder in an attempt to sooth him. "And, besides," I squeezed reassuringly, "The treaties have been signed, it would risk an uprising from the rest of the kingdoms if the krayevee do anything."

"My mother says not to trust them, they aren't like the rest of us..." he warned, and I felt his sharp claws digging deeper into my arm. "They can't be trusted."

His eyes peered around agitated and briefly softened his grip.

"I don't think the Harpie will be stopping at the gates this time around. We should lay low until the smog passes-"

Just as I was about to finish, a branch twice the size of my arm thrusted sharply into the side of the Harpie and yanked Eris overboard into the smog. Desperate souls rushed away from the moving trees that wriggled through the deck in an attempt to spare themselves.

"Help me! Someone, help!" Eris's voice echoed from beneath the smog on our right.

My blood pulsed through my veins, hot and boiling. It burned in my chest and flared against my skin. I could feel it pulsing in my temples.

THUMP - THUMP

THUMP - THUMP

THUMP - THUMP

"Is there a spitfire on board?!?" I shouted, turning to face the rest.

"That boy can't be the only helldornian here!" I scattered the small crowd with my eyes.

"Someone!" I mumbled, grabbing a hold of people to get a better look at them.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" growled one of the giants, shoving me off. "Do you want us all to get killed for some..." he paused briefly and inhaled frustrated, "some...boy?" 

"You wouldn't say the same thing if he were one of you, would you now?" I retorted, nudging off his palm. "But he is just a fried skin, isn't he?" I added as I locked eyes with Geno.

The cervitaur flattened his ears, lowering his gaze.

The Harpie shook brutally making some of them fall on to the floor, and that's when I spotted him – a spitfire.

He laid curled up into a sleeping rag in one dark corner of the Harpie. His dusty red wings puffed up around him in a cocoon like manner, his horns the only things visible.

"Sleeping well, are we?" a fellow passenger pushed him with his foot, and the man sluggishly raised his head, rubbing his chin.

"You sure are loud," he taunted, throwing me a glance.

"There is a boy..." I reasoned, "...from your lands..." I added, approaching him, wobbling as the turbulence of the deck heightened. "The wildering woods yanked him overboard."

His chin moved downwards, and he sighed sharply.

"You can't expect me to fly over and get him, do you?" he sneered, standing up. 

He stretched his wings and he must've realized the seriousness of my remark, because as soon as we met eyes his muscles contorted downward into a deep frown. 

"The smog will melt my wings," he felt the need to point out the obvious, "...you do know that?"

"Burn them," I told him.

The crowd fell silent, and only the venomous wind could be heard blowing thorough the lanky branches.

"You got to be kidding me!" he finally uttered after he finally understood the degree of my request.

"Burn them down," I repeated. "That's the only thing that will make them settle."

"You know it's against the accords to flame someone."

Another branch pierced right between us, and Eris's screams reached our ears once more. The spitfire's eyes widened at the sound of the child's voice and his wings stiffened around him. 

"Nobody will utter anything about it..." I promised. "It will be as if it had never happened... You have my word," I added, throwing the rest a quick glance. "The boy will die if you don't."

The crowd whispered indistinguishably as the Harpie's deck started to let out cracking sounds.

"Only for the boy..." said the spitfire, and he drew in a deep breath of poisoned air, is chest puffing upwards.

"Everyone, step aside... Step aside!" I warned. "...and get a hold of something sturdy!" 

The smog raised up to the deck of the Harpie and I know that was the moment.

"NOW!" I shouted.

The spitfire blew out daringly upon my mark and inferno breached outward from his lips. The flames engulfed the branches and crackling sounds with weeping noise reached my ears, loud and pitched.

"Go!" urged one of the giants, as he pushed aside the flaming branches that now swung around viciously trying to retract, "Get the boy!"

I anchored my claws into the wooden side of the Harpie and crawled downward in a blind manner reaching my arm from where I heard the boy's voice earlier.

"Grab my hand!" I shouted, "Grab my hand, now!

"You won't be able to lift me," Eris's voice echoed.

The deck shifted sideways, and I could feel my feet slowly loosing grip.

"You have to trust me!" I told him, "Grab my hand on the count of three!"

"I can't do this!" he cried. "I really can't!"

"One!" I yelled, and I extended my hand towards his direction as much as my muscles allowed me.

"Two!"

A large branch, which tried to shrug the flames off of it, wobbled, stumbling in our direction. It had to be then, or both of us would be pushed into the oblivion of the green sandstorms. None of us would make it out alive then.

"Three!" I shouted finally.

As I pulled him upward towards the deck, my vision suddenly got blurred and I felt a painful stinging sensation in the back of my head accompanied by ringing in my ears.